The present invention relates to an infant care apparatus and, more particularly, to an improved means of aligning and providing stability for various components that make up the infant care apparatus, including the access doors and vertically movable hood.
In the use of infant incubators, the infant care apparatus normally includes an infant compartment within which the infant is positioned and which provides to that infant, a controlled environment to aid in the wellbeing of the infant. It is common for the walls of such compartment to have doors so that the caregiver can have access to the interior of the incubator to carry out an intervention on the infant or simply to place the infant into the incubator or remove the infant therefrom. Normally, the wall itself is the door as the entire wall or side of the infant compartment can be opened by the user, thus, one or more walls may be, in effect, a door or doors to access the internal area of the infant incubator.
It is also common that the doors swing open in an outwardly and downwardly direction so that the doors can swing free to provide full access to the infant. Typical of such doors can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,824 of Koch et al. Accordingly the normal doors are hinged at their bottom and have latches at their top or upper side areas that can secure the door in a closed position and which latches also can be readily opened by the user. While the construction of the latching mechanisms of such doors is a relatively straight forward engineering task where there are only side doors and where the ends of the incubator are fixed, it becomes more of a problem when the apparatus has three doors that can be opened, that is, along the two elongated lateral sides as well as at one of the ends.
As will be used hereinafter by convention, the sides of the infant apparatus will be referred to as the sides paralleling the body of the infant while the ends will be referred to as the rear end, where the infant""s head is generally positioned and which is also adjacent the monitoring and control functions of the infant care apparatus and the front end where the feet of the infant normally are positioned and which area extends away; in cantilever fashion, from the main frame and structure of the infant care apparatus. An example of such an apparatus is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 0,00,000 of Donnelley et al.
In such an apparatus with three doors, that is, at the two lateral sides and at the front end of the apparatus, it is obviously important for each of the side doors and the end front door to be openable individually, or, to be able to open all of the doors at the same time without detracting from the overall integrity of the apparatus so as to maintain strength and rigidity to the overall structure. Thus, a door latching mechanism and structural system is needed that would allow all three of such doors to open individually or all at the same time where the apparatus has doors on three sides of the infant compartment to gain access to the infant. In such case, the door and structure for the overall infant apparatus must be sufficiently solid and not sacrifice the integrity of the apparatus, yet there must be a latching arrangement to allow each door to be opened.
The problem is thus compounded further where the infant apparatus has a hood that is vertically movable. Such hood has a lower portion where the overall apparatus is functioning as a normal infant incubator and the hood seals against the upper peripheral edges of the sides and ends of the apparatus to form an infant compartment and an upper position where the hood is displaced upwardly with respect to the sides and ends and thus opens the infant compartment. When in the upper position, the hood may also serve to function as a radiant warmer for the infant apparatus, however, in any event, whatever the function of the vertically movable hood, it is clear that when the hood is displaced upwardly to its upper position, there is a more serious structural and integrity problem facing the designer since the sides and ends lack the support that is normally afforded by having a fixed upper hood component and, additionally, there is the problem of providing some system to interengage the upper peripheral edges of the sides and ends with the hood when the hood is moved to its lower position.
Thus, with the use of an overhead vertically movable hood, it is also important to provide a means of aligning that hood with the other components of the infant apparatus, and, in particular, with the side doors and end door to lend structural integrity to the overall apparatus. Due to the tolerances present in the manufacturing of relatively large plastic molded components, such as doors and a hood for use in construction an infant apparatus of the present inventive type, some means is necessary for the hood to interfit with the doors to provide accurate alignment as well as add stability to the overall apparatus to provide that needed integrity.
Accordingly, the present invention relates to a means of stabilizing and providing an infant apparatus where there are three doors that can be opened, all of which are hinged at their bottom and which swing downwardly and outwardly. The doors are the side doors and the front end door to enable full access to and infant positioned within the apparatus. With the present system, any one of the three doors may be opened by the user and the remaining doors will still be structurally strong and sufficiently rigid. The system allows all three doors to be opened at the same time or any lesser number of doors as desired by the user. The system further provides, and maintains, integrity to the overall infant apparatus with the doors in any variety of positions and also provides an additional structural support for the side doors when the hood is in its lowered position. In the preferred embodiment, the side doors are double walled construction.
Thus, in the present invention, a door latching system is shown that allows the use of three doors to be operable on an infant apparatus and each door can be opened and closed individually or collectively and yet, the overall structure of the walls surrounding the infant compartment are structurally sound. In addition, there is an integrity system that affixes a vertically movable hood to the upper peripheral edges of the three doors when the hood is lowered to its closed position wherein the infant compartment is operating as an incubator.